


right here, right now

by mouthbites



Category: B1A4
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, Garage Band AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 16:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12370032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouthbites/pseuds/mouthbites
Summary: “We’re talking about the biggest independent music festival in the region.” Jinyoung leaned forward, eyes burning. “The place will be littered with agents and industry people. Last time, three years ago,fourgroups got signed. This is not the time to play it safe.”





	right here, right now

The sun has set. The garage is quiet.

Chanshik sits behind his board, tapping a melody with his left hand. He wears his headphones askew, covering one ear and sitting behind the other, listening with only a half. Junghwan sits across him, picking at the strings of his guitar, not plugged in. He maps out chords with long quick fingers, but doesn’t play them. Sunwoo is slouched in the dirty couch in the corner, flicking his thumb over his phone, yawning. Jinyoung stands turned away from them, staring into the barricade of old foam mattresses strapped over the two garage doors. One hand on his hip and the other pinching his phone to his ear for the seventh time this afternoon. In the back sits the black five-piece drum kit, lonely and untouched.

Chanshik can just hear the signals, dull slow beeps, in time with Jinyoung’s steady breaths. Six, seven, eight – voicemail.

Jinyoung jams his thumb into the screen and flips around. “This asshole.” His brows have sunk more and more on his face with every unanswered call and now sit in a tight straight line over his eyes. It’s starting to look comical, but Chanshik knows better than to laugh. Jinyoung kicks at Sunwoo’s feet and sinks down next to him. “Of all the fucking days to disappear, he chooses this week.”

“He’s late all the time,” Junghwan points out.

“Never for rehearsal,” Sunwoo says. “Maybe something happened.” He taps at his phone, trying to pick something out of his teeth with his tongue. They had eaten while waiting, free of charge courtesy of Sunwoo’s parents. The others didn’t want to save Dongwoo any, but Chanshik snuck a portion away and hid it in the back of the fridge. “Maybe he’s dead.”

“What the fuck,” Junghwan says, but laughs.

“We could go over the riffs again?” Chanshik says.

“We’ve gone over them like five times. We need the full picture.”

“We could use a synth beat.” Chanshik fingers his levers.

“It’s not the right beat,” Sunwoo says, rolling his eyes.

Junghwan stars humming, twanging at his muted strings.

“Does anyone have gum?” Sunwoo asks.

Chanshik feels Jinyoung’s gaze on him.

“Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“I told you,” Chanshik snaps, “I don’t.”

Jinyoung tips his head back against the wall and groans. “Five fucking days.”

They had seen the posters months ago, pasted over messy tags on the concrete wall outside a club, and sent in a demo the next day. A couple of weeks later Jinyoung had forwarded a polite email saying that they were one of many talented local artists, yada yada, but hadn’t made the cut. Jinyoung had been annoyingly optimistic, talking about a world full of open doors and sailing ships. The rest of them had shrugged and moved on with their lives.

Then, two days ago, Friday, Chanshik had been woken up at half past noon by a phone call that for the first five minutes consisted mainly of Jinyoung yelling. The organizers had contacted him again, Chanshik made out eventually. Apparently they had liked the demo, and now another band had suddenly dropped out, and they wanted B1A4 to play.

Six hours later they had opened the emergency band meeting around two family sized pizzas and a couple of six-packs, Jinyoung already jotting down a bullet list on a notepad with a thick sharpie.

“They’re not finished,” Sunwoo had protested, quite muddily with his mouth full of hot cheese, leaning over to peek.

“I’ll finish them.” Jinyoung waved a hand at him. “They just need some polishing. We have time.”

“We have _one week_.”

“We’re talking about the biggest independent music festival in the region.” Jinyoung leaned forward, eyes burning. “The place will be littered with agents and industry people. Last time, three years ago, _four_ groups got signed. This is not the time to play it safe. I’m not gonna go up there and rehash shit we wrote years ago. We need our newest material, our best material, songs that represent our sound. We have to bring our fucking A-game.”

Nobody said anything. Junghwan’s eyes were wide on him, slice forgotten in his hand. Dongwoo slowly traced his finger around the rim of his can, looking serious.

“We’ve got fifteen minutes,” Jinyoung said. “Three songs.”

He slid his list into the middle of the table, and ten minutes later three of the six titles were circled.

Jinyoung looked around on them. “Call?”

Junghwan was grinning ear to ear, his legs bouncing under the table. “Call!”

Sunwoo was scratching his chin, still studying the paper. He shrugged. “Call.”

Dongwoo nodded. “Call.”

Chanshik felt the eyes on him. “Call!” he concluded, voice strong.

“Are we gonna do this?” Jinyoung asked them. There was some scattered nodding around the table. “Are we fucking gonna do this?!” Jinyoung asked again, louder now.

“Yeah!” Junghwan yelled. The excitement got too much for him and he shot up from his seat, beginning to move aimlessly around the kitchen, laughing.

“Fuck yeah!” Sunwoo added and raised his beer can as if to toast it.

Chanshik’s eyes met Dongwoo’s across the table. There was a silent smile on his face, warm and calm and amused. It made Chanshik smile back.

They had worked out most of the arrangements on Saturday, staying in the garage from noon to nine thirty, leaving only to pick up take-out. Jinyoung had given them half of Sunday off, for the sake of homework and other obligations, asking them all to be gathered and ready two and a half… – Chanshik checks his phone for the time – three hours ago.

There is a rattle outside and they all turn their heads in time to see Dongwoo open the side door. He pauses in the attention, as if he didn’t expect it. His gaze skitters from Junghwan, to Sunwoo, flitting over the floor, stopping on Jinyoung. Jinyoung, still splayed along the pit of the sunken cushions as if his body is infinitely heavy, lifts his palms in the air.

“What the fuck, dude? We said 4PM. Where have you been?”

Dongwoo bends his head down. He quietly closes the door behind him and mumbles something.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Dongwoo says, a little louder, meeting Jinyoung’s gaze. He starts moving towards the other end of the room, sticking close to the wall as if glued to it, stepping and almost tripping over Junghwan’s bag that’s lying tossed on the floor. Jinyoung follows him with his eyes. Dongwoo shrugs off his backpack and hangs his jacket over a chair in the corner. Finally he reaches his kit and ducks behind it, jumping when he accidentally knocks over a cymbal and it crashes against the hard floor with a wild clatter that cuts through the compact silence of the room. He dives after it and fumbles it back upright, then takes a seat on his throne, back hunched. He stuffs his earplugs into his ears and then picks up his sticks, but doesn’t let them taste them drums.

Sunwoo slowly starts chewing his gum again, tapping to wake up his phone screen that has gone black. Junghwan’s eyes flit from Dongwoo to Chanshik, to Jinyoung, and back again. Chanshik looks at Jinyoung.

Jinyoung sighs and sits up. “Okay, let’s get started.”

 

 

Dongwoo stands bent over his bike when Chanshik comes out on the dark driveway. A veil of light fans out from the hallway window, stretching his shadow long and papery thin.

“Hey.”

Dongwoo barely turns his head. “Hey.” His lock tends to jam. You have to push the bar in while rolling the code. He wiggles it, then gives a jerk, and it opens. The back doors of Jinyoung’s rusty van stand open. Dongwoo rolls up his bike and hauls it inside.

“Need a hand?”

“No, I’m good.”

Chanshik puts his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt. Dongwoo moves away from him, unlocks Sunwoo’s bike too and pushes it in half on top of his own.

The door opens and falls close behind him.

“What’s up, dweebs.” Sunwoo swaggers up to Dongwoo’s side and hands him his bass. Dongwoo rolls his eyes and stuffs it into the car. They joke about something. Sunwoo laughs, and Dongwoo grabs the back of his neck, grinning. The back hatches slam shut with thick, metallic noises, stark in the night. Dongwoo climbs into the front seat, and Sunwoo stands outside complaining about not having enough room for a minute before climbing in after him.

Jinyoung’s hand lands soft on Chanshik’s shoulder. “Good job today.” His shoulders are hanging, but he’s smiling.

“Yeah,” Chanshik says.

Sunwoo hangs halfway out his side door window, waving. Jinyoung raises one hand back at Chanshik before getting into the driver seat.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Chanshik says. There is a noise of complaint when Jinyoung dumps his guitar into his bandmates’ laps. The engine whines a couple of times, stuttering, before coming to a rumbling start. Chanshik watches the tail lights blink on, ruby red, and steps out on the lawn and follows them until they have disappeared down the street.

Hongbin is sitting by the kitchen table, bent over a textbook and the hidden portion of stew. He looks up when he hears Chanshik come in. “Junghwan-hyung said I could,” he says, mouth full.

Chanshik hopes he didn’t look accusing. “Yeah, don’t worry. Enjoy.”

“Are you guys done?”

“Yeah. For today.” Chanshik opens the fridge, and closes it again. Maybe he should eat something, but he’s not hungry. “Is it okay?”

“What?”

“That we’re playing.”

Hongbin shrugs. “It’s your house.”

The living room is in darkness, the rectangle of kitchen warmth falling from the doorway reaching only halfway over the floor. Chanshik lingers in the shadows, behind the couch cutting through the room, baring its back. His fingers trail slowly across the top of the backrest, reading the elevated dots patterning the fabric like Braille, feeling tiny stiff fibers prickling his skin. 

Upstairs, Junghwan’s door is closed. A bright strip escapes from under it, fading out over the floorboards. Chanshik crosses the landing and closes his own door behind him.

The bed stands unmade since this morning, with some clothes thrown over the heaped blankets. Chanshik walks up to the window and clicks the lamp on the sill. His reflection in the dark glass is blurry and sinister-looking, shadows stretching up from his chin and cheekbones, double exposed over the black shapes of tree crowns swaying against the dirty orange sky hanging over the city.

Chanshik looks down on his desk, standing beneath the window. There are some bills he must remember to pay. Note sheets covered in scribbles stick out here and there, under or between or on top of other things. He puts his hand on the tall pile of books sitting by the left edge of the desk, by the wall, reaching him to the waist. His finger absently traces the blocky title of the top cover.

One of the shirts on the bed isn’t his. He picks it up and holds it out before him by the shoulder seams. It’s green and blue plaid, with small shimmering buttons. He takes out a hanger from his closet and fits it under the collar, hanging it over the top of the sliding wardrobe door. Buttons the top button, smooths the fabric out with his hands.

He moves the rest of the clothes to the desk chair and then sits down on the bed, hands pinched between his thighs. The window lamp projects a cream oval over the grey ceiling, making the red-painted walls glow. Chanshik lies down.

When the clock on the dresser hits twenty-three, he gets up and goes downstairs again, packs his night snack and his change of clothes, wears his jacket and turns his bike lights on on the handlebar and under the saddle. The roads towards the city are calm, and the night winds cold and smooth on his face. His legs are strong and light, pumping through the heavy gear, quickly working into speed. He breathes steadily, feeling his muscles softening and his head growing clear.

 

 

Dongwoo wakes up on Monday morning from Jinyoung knocking on his door. At first he can’t for the life of him understand what that noise means and where it’s coming from. Then he wakes up a bit more, and the world starts falling into place.

“Come in,” he calls in a thick, rough voice.

Jinyoung is dressed and fresh. “Sorry, were you sleeping?”

“Yes,” Dongwoo says.

“I was thinking…” Jinyoung leans his shoulder to the doorframe. “This afternoon.”

Dongwoo peers at him over his covers. “What?”

“I can pick you up after work, if you want. I have class till like, three thirty, tops. You’ll be done around four, right? And we can go to Chanshik’s right away.”

Something jerks in Dongwoo’s throat, almost like a hiccup. “Okay.”

“If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” Dongwoo says. “Sure.”

“Okay.” Jinyoung straightens up. “Cool. See you later.”

“Hey.” Dongwoo pulls himself up to his elbow, poking crust out of his eye. Jinyoung stands with his hand on the handle. “Didn’t you have that presentation today?”

“Yeah.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

There’s no point in going back to sleep, but even if there was, Dongwoo doesn’t think he’d be able to. When the front door slams shut just after eight he groans and rolls over to his back, arms landing limp along his sides under the covers, and stares blankly into the ceiling until his alarm goes off at eight twenty-five.

He pulls himself up and swings his legs over the edge, slowly and stiffly like an old man. After finding some clean clothes he shuffles out into the kitchen and chucks a mug of water into the microwave and, while it’s humming, starts digging around in the cabinet for the instant coffee.

It shouldn’t be possible to be this tired after eight hours of sleep.

He eats his breakfast on the couch in the small stump of space that can barely be called a living room, separated from the kitchen by a stretch of counter covered in dishes and empty bottles, shifting his attention between the morning news streaming barely audibly on the fat TV perched on the dresser by the opposite wall and his SNS on his laptop on the coffee table.

They got the apartment at the start of his third year of college; the start of Jinyoung’s first. Jinyoung had called him one evening, the way Jinyoung does; “I’ve found one.”

Two bedrooms on the fifth floor in an aging building in an area that at the point of construction might have been considered hip and fresh, but the rent was okay and three weeks later, pockets heavy with thick deposition checks persuaded out of their parents, it was Theirs.

He wasn’t comfortable there right away. They didn’t have a lot of things, and the rooms looked naked and poor, the walls anonymously white. It had a smell, that though not unpleasant, was the smell of someone else’s home. The one who was here before. Like he was a visitor. He wiped off all the shelves in the kitchen an extra time before putting in their plates and glasses, even though it already looked clean, and then the ones in his wardrobe before putting in his clothes.

When he lay in bed the first night, in newly-washed sheets that smelled of his mom’s closet, he realized with a sting of shame that he wanted to go home.

That was over two years ago, now. Living with Jinyoung has been default state for so long that he can barely remember any other arrangement. It’s funny how quickly you soak into the walls, how you fill the corners with your dirt, how easily you get used to that smell. How quickly Jinyoung can fill up an apartment with furniture and trinkets he finds, thrifts or is given.

Dongwoo folds his laptop shut, fits his dishes into the sink and fills them with water, picks at a dirty pot that bothers him but soon puts it back on the stove and drags himself into the bathroom. Half past nine he stuffs his lunch into his backpack, does a double take halfway to the door and slips back into his room for his phone, pauses by the hallway mirror to pull a brush through his hair, then ties his shoelaces, locks the door and jogs down the stairs.

 

 

Jinyoung never had a plan B. He was going to major in music. It wasn’t determination as much as patience; calmly, confidently knowing that his time would come, his opportunities would present themselves. What for Dongwoo had been a question of what, was for Jinyoung where and when.

The first time he didn’t even make it to auditions. After graduation he got a part-time job to save up some money, and spent the rest of his time bent over a guitar. He took lessons, busked, performed at open mics, composed, sang at weddings and parties, and practiced and practiced and practiced.

The next year, it felt like everyone around him assumed it was his time. He got on a train on a sunny morning in December, and replied to Dongwoo’s text wishing good luck with three big hand emojis giving thumbs up. When Dongwoo asked him how it went the next day, he shrugged.

“It’s a good school. There was a lot of talented people.”

One by one, the rejection letters trickled in. If he was depressed about it, he didn’t let it show. He kept on working.

It took to his third round. Dongwoo remembers; January 2012, it was a cold day, it had snowed. He came out after class to a series of barely intelligible texts. He stepped aside in the hallway and dialed Jinyoung, watching the white, frosted world outside the window, glittering in the sun.

“CBNU!” Jinyoung shouted into his ear. “CB-fucking-NU!”

“Really?” Dongwoo had said. “Congrats, man.”

Jinyoung laughed, his voice sounding both shaky and strong. “And we get to keep the band!”

 

 

Dongwoo remembers. 

Dongwoo remembers the first day of school, first grade. It was a warm day for being March. His mother had taken a picture of him in the morning, standing with his brand new little backpack on the steps of the porch. After the roll call they had been assigned their seats. Dongwoo had cried when his mother left and was feeling a little embarrassed.

His deskmate - a boy who, Dongwoo noted with apprehension, looked a bit uptight, despite how the angle of his eyebrows gave him a permanently worried expression - looked over at him and said; “Hi.”

Dongwoo sniffed to himself. “Hi.”

“I’m Jung Jinyoung,” the boy said. “What’s your name?”

“Shin Dongwoo.”

They were in the same class all the way to high school. When Jinyoung started listening to obscure bands, indie pop and American punk, so did Dongwoo. When Jinyoung started growing his hair out, toeing the line of what school regulations allowed, so did Dongwoo, but with different results since he hadn't discovered conditioner yet and had no idea how to tame the frizzy mane that sprouted on his head. When Jinyoung joined the music club, so did Dongwoo. He tried guitar at first, then piano for a while, and then he discovered the dusty old drum kit in the corner that nobody ever touched. 

It had a blanket stuffed into the bass drum. One late afternoon, when almost everybody else had gone home, he took it out. Took the worn sticks in his hands and fell into the rhythm he had rehearsed. Carefully first, wood soft on the skin, feet light on the pedals. After a minute, he fell quiet. Then started again, harder now.

He didn’t analyze it at the time, but it was funny. How he, who never spoke in class unless he had to, who always had his phone on mute outside the house, who preferred sitting in the back, listening, observing - how much he enjoyed making noise.

When he finished with a loud strike on the cymbal, he realized Jinyoung, sitting cradling a guitar at the other side of the room, was looking at him. His eyebrows sat high on his forehead and his mouth was split in a big grin.

“That was awesome!” 

A grin came on Dongwoo’s face a well, small first, then wider. “Yeah.”

Second year, spring, they came into the clubroom one day to find a new kid alone on a chair, fiddling with one of the guitars. He looked up when he heard the slide of the door - a languid movement, almost lazy; sloping, heavy-lidded eyes focusing on them. He had glasses, just like Dongwoo, and a cap pressed down over his bushy hair.

“What’s up?” the freshman said, just barely formal enough to not be rude. “Are you guys members?” 

They nodded.

“Cool." He put the guitar away and stood up. "I’m Sunwoo.”

Dongwoo remembers. Same time, same room, one year later. Senior year. Him and Jinyoung were going over some chords when Sunwoo pushed the door open.

“Hey,” he greeted, and Dongwoo saw that he had someone with him. Probably a new freshman, judging by the looks of him, and the fact that Dongwoo had never seen him before. He trailed in after Sunwoo, thumbs hooked into the straps of his backpack, long hair falling over his face. 

“Have you met the new club member?” Sunwoo asked, jabbing a thumb in the air behind him. “You have to hear him on keyboard!”

The kid grinned, a little held back but at the same time cheeky, revealing sharp teeth.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and Dongwoo could already hear the trace of a southern accent in his voice. He flipped the hair out of his eyes; sharp and piercing. “I’m Gong Chanshik.”

 

 

Dongwoo makes a horse-like noise when the cold water hits his face. His fingers are stiff and prickling after just a couple of seconds under the tap. The employee bathroom is barely big enough to turn around in, and the overhead lamp sends shadows down Dongwoo’s face that make him look undead. He realizes absently that he’s hunched over, hands clamped around the sink edges, staring himself down in the mirror. Drops of water trickle down his cheeks. Hair hangs limply over his left eye. He bends over again, rubbing his eyelids with wet fingers, then yanks a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser.

Putting his glasses back on, he wrings off the red polo shirt and pulls a grey tee and a plaid shirt out of his bag. He grabs his jacket from the hanger outside and slides it on while walking, shifting the backpack between his hands and then slinging it over one shoulder, sagging at his side. 

“Later, hyung,” Jaehwan calls when he passes the register.

Dongwoo gives him a smile. “Bye.”

Jinyoung is parked right outside the door. There’s a beaming smile on his face, and he lifts his hand to wave at Dongwoo through the windshield, as if Dongwoo hadn’t already seen him.

“I got your bike,” he says when Dongwoo opens the passenger door.

“Thanks,” Dongwoo says and straps himself down. Jinyoung coaxes the motor awake and rolls left into the street, humming something.

Dongwoo cradles his bag in his lap and can’t shake the feeling of being eight years old and getting picked up from school to make sure he’s home in time for dinner.

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

They slow down at the intersection. Jinyoung leans forward to peer down the streets, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“We have to swing by Samick’s,” he says. “I busted my G-string.” He grins at Dongwoo’s loud cackle. “Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

It takes them a while to find a parking spot. Jinyoung circles the lot three times, but all open slots look dangerously narrow. Finally he drives out on the street again and pockets himself into a gap along the sidewalk a block away.

Dongwoo waits on the sidewalk while Jinyoung works the key in the lock on the driver’s side. A cool gust of wind tugs at his hair, twirling some yellowing leaves over the tarmac. Dongwoo zips up his jacket. Finally there’s a muttered curse from the other side of the van, and then Jinyoung comes around the back of it and skips up on the curb.

“I have to get that piece-of-shit lock fixed,” he says, falling into Dongwoo’s step, hands in his pockets.

They walk in silence side by side, coming around the corner to the tiled front with the large windows covered in life-sized posters. Jinyoung pulls open the heavy glass door and holds it, looking back at him, until Dongwoo has caught it with his palm.

Without a word, he slips off to the left and Dongwoo, not looking after him, turns to the right.

They cashier lights up at the sight of him and gives him an upwards nod. Dongwoo nods back, stretching his lips. He wanders off between the familiar aisles, listening to the scattered cacophony of lonely instruments. Though the walls and ceilings are painted black, it’s not dark in there. Squares of soft white hang in a grid overhead, and spotlights in tight rows along the walls. A sign over a counter advertises repairs, and another pointing up a staircase drum lessons.

He smiles at the sight of a tiny, dark red keyboard controller, just two octaves long, and tries his hands on the white keys. The wall behind is covered in mixers and drum machines in cardboard boxes, buttons and levers on shiny plastic, like toys for overgrown kids. He moves to a full-length synthesizer, silver grey, and maps out a melody on its silent keys with his right hand. After a minute the left falls in as well. His fingers warm up quickly, even though it’s been a while since he played.

The percussions room has some seven or eight kits set up; black, red, glittering grey and pearlescent blue. A bunch of snares lie lined up on a three level rack, silver rims glinting. Cymbals hang perched on thin arms extending from the wall like golden mushrooms. On a raised platform, looming above the rest, thrones a ten piece Pearl set, sides a sunset orange dripping and darkening to deep maroon at the bottom. For a second Dongwoo allows himself to picture himself up there; a dark red spot on him, sticks rolling through his fingers, a crowd beneath, the roar of voices. Then he snorts and turns away. He lingers by the sticks, fingering on a pair of black 5Bs he doesn’t need, before circling back around.

He finds Jinyoung squished in between a couple of yellow amps, nimbly rolling the buttons, producing a coarse, humming noise. On his thigh sits a pitch-black star; matte and swan-necked with a forked head with two white wings spread for flight printed along the arms of the cut.

“Hey,” Jinyoung says, looking up. “Check this out.” His hands are tender and delicate, reverent, but quick, like a young man on his first night with a woman. He flicks the strings with his left pointer, jiggling the whammy bar with his other hand, riding the vibrations till the last mumbling whine. He grins impishly, and Dongwoo finds himself smiling at him.

“Great voice, right?”

Dongwoo nods.

Jinyoung picks a couple of notes, then strikes and pulls the whammy again, steering the sound up at the end. Dongwoo bends down and catches the price tag dangling from around the nut, turning it over, then gently but swiftly confiscates the guitar from Jinyoung’s grasp, unplugs it and puts it back among its friends on the black wall.

Jinyoung waits for him at the walkway, and Dongwoo follows him into the next room.

“So what was up yesterday?” Jinyoung asks carelessly after a minute, walking slowly down an aisle, looking around.

Dongwoo’s head whips up. “What do you mean?”

“Did something happen?”

Dongwoo looks down at his feet. “I got held up at work.”

“Really?” Jinyoung glances back at him, gaze unusually piercing. “Was someone sick?”

“What?”

“Or why did you get called in? I know you weren’t scheduled for yesterday.”

“Uh,” Dongwoo says. “Yes?”

Jinyoung snorts. “You’re a shit liar, you know that?”

Dongwoo stops behind him, arms hanging. “I’m sorry I was late. It won’t happen again.”

Jinyoung watches him, eyes narrowed, then nods lightly. “Okay.”

He turns a corner and continues into the next aisle, and Dongwoo trails after him like a stray dog. After a couple of meters he makes a noise and stops at a rack filled with small paper squares. Dongwoo circles past him, shifting his feet over the floor and looking at a glass display of plectrums.

“Is something weird between you and Chanshik?” Jinyoung asks suddenly, flipping among the strings.

Dongwoo stiffens. “Why would it be?”

“You wouldn’t even look at him last night.” Jinyoung glances at him from the corner of his eye. “You stayed behind after practice on Saturday, didn’t you?”

Dongwoo nods slowly.

“Did something happen?” Jinyoung asks again.

Dongwoo reaches out and picks at a yellow, striped plectrum. “No,” he says. Flips the plastic between his fingertips, then puts it back. “Nothing happened.”

He can feel Jinyoung watching him from the side, longer this time.

“Okay,” he says finally. He picks out an envelope, grey with a backwards F in a blue ring, and digs in his pocket for his wallet. “Let’s go?”

 

 

The sky hangs dusty white over them as they cross the river, turn right and fall into the steady stream of the afternoon rush, following the water south to the edge of the city where the dense forest of tall apartment complexes meets wide, flat riverbank fields, dotted with farms and crawling greenhouses. The road veers away there, leaving its companion and leaning east. After a couple of minutes Jinyoung slows down, stops at the intersection and then rolls left across the other lanes, coming onto a narrower road. The houses are smaller here, the cars slower, the air a little clearer. Pieces of forest stretch out between stumps of fields, lawns and clusters of bungalows with gardens.

Chanshik’s family had been planning to move back to Suncheon right after Chanshik’s high school graduation. His father had been asked to transfer, or something. Dongwoo doesn’t remember the details. All he knows is that Chanshik, somehow, last minute, talked his parents into letting him stay. He was already playing in the hotel bar at that point, and had been promised shifts when he became of age. Junghwan came into the picture shortly after that, desperate to get out of his aunt’s attic in which he had lived for two months.

The house is from the sixties or seventies, but looks well maintained and carries a certain sense of integrity. It’s sizable without looking flashy, on a grassy corner lot with a half second story on the left side of the building. A strip of lawn separates it from the large double garage.

Jinyoung curves into the paved driveway and pulls the handbrake. Barely has he got the keys out of the ignition before he’s out of his seat. Dongwoo feels the draft from the back doors being opened on the back of his neck. He takes his time unbuckling and getting out. Jinyoung holds out one of his cased guitars, and Dongwoo takes it by the handle.

“Thanks.”

Jinyoung skips ahead of him up the couple of steps, rings the doorbell and walks in without waiting for a response.

Sunwoo and Junghwan are sprawled over the living room, passing a jumbo-sized bag of chips between them. Their heads both turn around at the sound of the door. Sunwoo raises his hand to full arm-length. “Yo!”

Jinyoung grins and walks in to them. Dongwoo’s untying his shoes and is just about to follow when Chanshik comes out from the kitchen, blocking the way. He’s two meters away but Dongwoo still finds himself shrinking back a little.

“Hi,” Chanshik says, back turned to the others.

Dongwoo doesn’t look at him at first, then he forces himself to. Meets his eyes for two seconds. Chanshik’s face is blank, his lips pursed slightly – the look that Dongwoo knows can mean literally anything in the world.

“Hi.”

He feels Chanshik’s eyes on him when he takes off his jacket, like he’s going to say something more.

“Chan-ah,” Junghwan calls, and Chanshik spins around. Dongwoo picks Jinyoung’s guitar back up and slips past him.

 

 

The small heating fan whirrs faintly on its table, spreading slowly a cloud of warmth into the corners of the garage. The floor, dressed in old greying rugs, is covered with long chords, just waiting to tangle. Sunwoo’s adjusting his tuning, cutting rough, dark noises through the air every now and then. Junghwan is stretching his fingers, twisting and bending his wrists.

Dongwoo squeezes his ear plugs between his fingers and pulls lightly at his ear with one hand, fitting the plug in with the other. He rolls his shoulders a little. His neck feels rigid, muscles stiff. He picks up one of his sticks, holding it, feeling the smooth wood against his skin, the weight of it in his hand. He fits his feet on the pedals, nudging the bass drum gently, teasing the hi-hat into a startled clatter. He’ll feel better once they start playing. He always does.

Sunwoo’s scattered fiddling turns more coherent. He flips the sash over his head, stands up and tears off a sinister bass solo, pulling dark, grumbling demon screeches from his five thick strings. He grins and flips his hair back nonchalantly when Chanshik laughs and applauds him.

Stilling, one by one their eyes all fall on Jinyoung, sitting hunched over his wrinkled, dog-eared stack of note sheets. He’s humming quietly to himself, running lines with his finger, and then suddenly his head whips up in the silence, eyes shifting between his bandmates like someone who just woke up where he did not fall asleep.

“Right,” he says, scratching at the back of his head. “Okay.” He gets up and grabs his Fender, hanging it over his thin torso.

They’re in a circle, facing inwards. Three microphones, set at standing-height, dot the formation. Jinyoung steps up to his and gives it a tap. One of the reading lamps clamped to the ceiling beams falls on the side of his face like a spotlight, catching glittering particles of dust floating in its range. His eyes lock with Junghwan’s, and they count down in their quiet, semi-telepathic way;

(One, two, three, four –)

Junghwan plucks the melody, soft and airy, and Jinyoung layers the chords, gentle but with a light, metallic rasp. The voices of the two strats dance around each other, twirling and tangling, like a unit. Junghwan leans towards the microphone. Dongwoo lifts his hands for the first beat.

 _you and i_ , Junghwan sings, _do you remember when we promised to always be friends?_

Sunwoo comes in a little late, but finds the tone and seems to have it covered from there, meeting Dongwoo’s monotone snaps on the snare. Jinyoung’s eyes glide over them, fingers working on their own.

_but i, i can’t help it, i keep feeling something else_

Dongwoo switches to a classic pulse. The tempo shifts, speeding up. Chanshik presses impatient chords, spurring Dongwoo’s hands and Junghwan’s voice.

_please don’t distance yourself from me, avoiding me, this can happen to anyone_

_i try to hide my feelings but i can’t, i really can’t help it now_

Everybody stills for a half second pause, and then Jinyoung sings the chorus;

_cause you are a girl, i’m a boy, you are a girl, i’m a boy_

_no matter what you say, whatever you do, i feel so good_

This time it’s Junghwan who loses track of his fingers. He makes a face at the odd sound before finding his way again. Dongwoo grins at the way Sunwoo fits his rich, pounding bass in with his own metallic strikes on snare skin and snare rim, giving a sense of completing the beat. He thought of that.

_cause you are a girl, i’m a boy, you are a girl, i’m a boy_

_won’t you feel me, come with me, can we still be friends?_

The second verse slows down again. Jinyoung strokes silky chords out of his strat, comped by Dongwoo’s two-pound beat on bass drum and snare. Junghwan’s voice flows smooth and easy from the speakers.

_have you heard what they say, that girls and boys can’t be friends? i didn’t believe in that, but now i keep feeling something else_

Sunwoo lets go of his bass, grabbing his mic instead.

_we used to play around when we were young, you were my best friend_

Jinyoung grinds quick chords, matching Chanshik’s driving undertones, bringing it higher.

_i thought that was all, but now i keep thinking about you, worrying_

_i think i’ve changed, i wanna be with you but not as just friends, i want you_

The second chorus is different, slower, heavier. Jinyoung pulls a screech from the Fender, making it scratch and twist under Dongwoo’s hard, irregular pulse.

_cause you are a girl, i’m a boy, you are a girl, i’m a boy_

_no matter what you say, whatever you do, i feel so good_

There’s a wide grin on Junghwan’s face, watching Jinyoung sing. Sunwoo seems to have found his flow, shifting his feet around and weighing on his knees with the rhythm.

_cause you are a girl, i’m a boy, you are a girl, i’m a boy_

_won’t you feel me, come with me, can we still be friends?_

The bridge; Junghwan and Jinyoung let their guitars hang. Chanshik flicks his synth to piano mode, tapping an elegant and surprisingly life-like string of tunes from the plastic keys. Dongwoo finds himself watching him, comping him with a light rhythm on the hi-hat with his right hand and hard strikes on the snare with his left. Chanshik’s dark unruly bangs hang down over his eyes. His mouth is tied together in concentration, but his fingers are nimble and quick. Distantly, Junghwan sings;

_i dreamed of you last night, again, we were holding hands, fingers laced_

_you were smiling and i never wanted to wake up, can’t you visit me again tonight?_

Sunwoo takes over for him, managing to keep his fingers working on the strings.

_i’m lucky because you’re by my side, i try pretending nothing’s wrong but now i regret treating you so nonchalantly_

_i keep going over the memories, picturing you, what to say, how to tell you, what i think we should do_

When the pace rises and spills into the last chorus, Chanshik looks up. His eyes lock onto Dongwoo’s and hold them ( _you are a girl, i’m a boy, you are a girl, i’m a boy_ ) until Dongwoo hits the drum wrong and almost drops his stick. Jinyoung’s head snaps to him, watching him over the microphone with a small, concerned wrinkle between his brows until he comes into the rhythm again.

_cause you are a girl, i’m a boy, you are a girl, i’m a boy_

_won’t you feel me, come with me, can we still be friends?_

It ends like it started, soft and mellow, cooling down. Dongwoo keeps his timing; a simple three-pound rhythm. Jinyoung lays airy, floating chords under Junghwan’s soothing humming. Sunwoo watches the two of them, nodding to himself in time with the beat.

Jinyoung strikes the last note, short and firm like a period.

They all stay silent for a couple of moments, as if catching their breaths.

Then Jinyoung looks around at them and nods. “Good,” he says. “This is gonna be good.”

Junghwan laughs at nothing in particular, hangs off his Squire and reaches for his water bottle. Sunwoo sits down and practices the part he fucked up, picking the notes over and over.

Dongwoo gets up from his throne, stretching his legs. Chanshik’s still looking at him, but Dongwoo doesn’t look back.

 

 

When they come home and Jinyoung says goodnight and Dongwoo closes his bedroom door and it’s quiet, it comes to him again. He lies awake on his back with his hands under his neck and thinks about light reflecting over floorboards in the dark. A thumb slowly tracing ellipses over the side of his index finger. Smiles. Tiny, stiff fabric fibers tickling his skin.

 

 

Chanshik wakes up slowly. One by one he rises through the layers, shrugging off the cobwebs of a dream he won’t remember, and then, suddenly, he knows that he’s awake.

The morning is young and pale, the light tinting Chanshik’s bedroom wall a dirty pink of the kind that tells of a chill in the air, a grey sky, a fresh and ruthless day.

It’s warm under the blankets. He doesn’t have to pee yet. He lies on his side, watching the homely disorder of his room, until he is ready to move.

Sitting up, scratching the back of his head, he picks up his phone, and then puts it back down again. No new messages.

The house feels emptier than usual. All colors are washed out. Chanshik follows the traces of humanity like an archeologist. A drop of water clinging halfway down the shaft of a green toothbrush. A box of cereal left on the kitchen table, a bowl on the counter with a couple of soggy cornflakes soaking in the shallows of a bit of milk at the bottom. A pair of sneakers, opted against, lying beside the shoe rack, one on its side, laces hanging limply.

Maybe Junghwan was in a hurry.

Chanshik never really knows what to do with mornings after nights off. They are too long.

After heating up some leftovers he goes upstairs and opens his laptop that’s sitting in the middle of the clutter on his desk. It decides to update something, and Chanshik slumps down into his office chair. Outside the window, the big tree growing just beyond the lot sheds a yellowed leaf. It doesn’t have a lot left now. One of the neighbor cats sits perched on the garden wall, ogling at something.

Chanshik’s eyes come to rest on the stack of textbooks perched at the side of the desk. He picks up the top one, leans back and flips through it, back to front, blankly scanning the headlines and chapters. Then he puts it back.

“I can’t believe you flunked the exams,” Sunwoo tells him at regular intervals, once a month or so. “You’re supposed to be the brainy one.”

He didn’t do the college entrance exams his senior year, or the year after that.

Then, last year, August, Suncheon;

His mother called his name is a mild voice. His father was sitting in the lounge. Tea and snacks were served on the coffee table. Chanshik sat down with them.

His parents wanted to know what kind of plans he had for his 20’s. If he had thought about a career. If he had any goals in his life that he wanted to fulfill.

His parents wanted him to go to college. Preferably in Suncheon. His parents wanted to sell the house in Cheongju.

So he studied.

He signed up to take the test. He had a good breakfast and then took the bus into town on that cool November morning. He walked into the lecture hall, found his assigned seat and sat down. He lifted his pen.

When it was over, he walked out.

When the results came in the mail a couple of weeks later he didn’t open it for several days because he knew. It sat on top of his dresser, like the eyes of a painting following him around the room. He knew exactly what that paper was going to say. He didn’t need to open it.

He avoided his mother’s calls for a week before he took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

Chanshik checks his email and messages, then surfs aimlessly for a while, chin resting deep in his palm and right heel bouncing quickly above the floor. After refreshing his dead Instagram feed for the third time he suddenly shoots to his feet and slaps the computer shut. He stuffs his phone into his pocket, grabs his backpack and skips down the stairs.

 

 

He locks up his bike at a stand by the wall half a block away. The streets are calm at this time of the day and in this part of the city. A handful of cars slide leisurely past him as he starts walking down the sidewalk, their sleepy humming layering clear over the faint drone of bigger, busier streets in the distance. He comes around the corner, passing a small restaurant and a men’s hairdresser, and then suddenly stops in his tracks, right before the first of two big display windows, with a glass door squished in between and a blocky neon sign above, pale and dull in the cloudy midday light.

He can see the movie posters hanging on the inside of the glass, and the couple of decorative popcorn buckets lined up in the sill, striped in red and white and filled with plastic kernels. He lurks close by the grey wall, hands in his pockets, just out of sight from inside. A sliver of wind snakes inside his collar and slides silky and cold against his neck. He breathes, calmly, through his nose. Then, as if unpaused, takes the handful of meters in four long strides and pushes through the door.

Immediately, the synthetic, sickly sweet smell of candy hits his face like the damp heat of a sauna. The left corner is a blur of colorful sweets in open, brimming trays, extending down and away from the wall in waves. On the other side, by the counter, stands shelves with bags of chips and snacks and two tall freezers filled with bottles and cans.

Dongwoo startles visibly when he looks up and spots him.

“Chanshik,” he says, eyeing him. “What are you doing here?”

Chanshik stops in front of him, hands still in his pockets, face to face with just the counter between them. “Renting a movie.”

Dongwoo’s wearing his glasses today as well. Since a year or two ago, he usually wears contacts. Chanshik can’t remember the last time Dongwoo wore glasses three days in a row. His hair is a bit messy, thin strands sticking out and hanging limp out of place. His eyes look smaller than usual, hooded and dark.

Chanshik looks at him until Dongwoo looks away, clearing his throat.

“Okay,” he mutters. “Let me know if you need help.” He turns his back to him, picking with something in a box, and Chanshik slowly moves his feet, walking backwards a couple of steps before turning away.

The place is completely empty, save for the two of them. It’s fairly small, not much bigger than a corner convenience store. Shelves line the walls of the back half of the space with three long sections lined up in the middle, making narrow aisles. The tiled floor is clean and the shelves well-organized, but there is something aged and out-of-style over it all, like a dusty filter. It reminds Chanshik of the blocky, square format and dimmed colors of American 90s high school flicks. The DVDs and Blue-rays look out of place. Chanshik should be standing there with a greasy center part browsing VHS tapes.

He moves from Crime to Science fiction and wonders distantly how a place like this can even still exist in this age of streaming sites and digital piracy. He’s walking around in a big anachronism, that’s what he’s doing.

Dongwoo is drifting around the store, putting back returned films. Chanshik watches him over the top of the low racks, reaching him just to the nose, pretending to read blurbs. He moves subtly with him, circles around him, keeping not too close, not too far away.

Dongwoo doesn’t notice. Dongwoo doesn’t look at him.

Chanshik half-heartedly picks out three titles and then walks back to the register.

“Three for two, right?” He says, sliding them across the counter.

“Yeah.” Dongwoo nods. “Do you have a membership card?”

“No.”

“Credit card?”

Chanshik digs in his wallet, holds it out between his index and middle finger. Dongwoo takes it without brushing against his hand. He types something into the computer, looking back and forth between the card and the keyboard and the screen. Then gives it back.

“Can I see your ID?”

Chanshik tilts his head to the side. “Come on.”

“Those are the rules. I have to.”

Chanshik holds it up next to his face, checking to match his facial expression with the picture. Dongwoo doesn’t laugh. Chanshik slides it back into its transparent slot.

“Can we talk?”

“I’m working, Chanshik.”

“I don’t mean right now.”

Dongwoo keeps his head down. His hands move slowly, shuffling the DVDs, sweeping the barcodes over the reader one by one. Blip. Blip. Blip. 

“Maybe.”

 

 

He’s halfway through the first movie when he sighs heavily and presses the red button on the remote. The TV screen cuts to snowstorm. The living room is dim with the curtains closed. The flickering light dances over Chanshik’s face, stinging in his eyes.

He scoots a little deeper in the cushions and tips his head to the left. The room sits in silence, the dusty bookcases gaping at him. Pale patches of gleam stretch over the smooth wooden floor from the kitchen doorway. The raised dots of the couch fabric brush against his temple and cheek. Chanshik closes his eyes.

Slowly, the inside of his eyelids turn blue, like phosphenes, a shape shifting and flickering - not steadily chaotic like the TV, but irregular and unpredictable, as if organic; lingering, almost allowing him to focus on it, then blinking fast, the ice blue shade changing slightly with every jump.

A miniscule shudder runs through him, just a shiver down his arm, a tingle down his back. Suddenly he’s very aware of his lips, like a flare in the darkness of his consciousness, as if something has ghosted over them, pressing down, lighting up the nerve ends. The fingers of his left hand tighten and close around nothing.

Without warning, his head jerks up and his eyes snap open, and he draws in a quiet breath. Soon he pulls himself out of the pit of the cushions, scooting out to the very edge of the seat, rubbing his eyes as if he just woke up from a long nap. The TV still stands broadcasting its blank signal. Chanshik gets up and turns it off by the front button on his way out.

 

 

Chanshik remembers. A Thursday afternoon in March, rainy and grey, Chanshik followed Sunwoo, whom he had talked to twice before, down the third floor corridor, listening to him babble about chords and amps and brand name guitars. It was the third week of high school, and Chanshik was starting to get used to the dress collar and uniform tie. 

Sunwoo only stopped talking when they reached the clubroom, carelessly shoving the door to the side before striding in. 

"Hey," he greeted, and Chanshik, coming in after him, saw that there was two guys in there, neither of whom he had seen before, both older than him. Seniors, probably. The first one, who had a guitar in his lap, was lanky and thin and had a handsome, fox-like face. The second, habitually twirling a drumstick between his fingers, wore a bulky PE sweatshirt over his uniform slacks. His hair was just long enough to have started to curl softly on his head, and his small eyes peered at Chanshik from under his thick glasses.

"Welcome to the club," the first guy said after Chanshik had introduced himself. His tone was light, friendly. "I'm Jinyoung, and this--" He nodded his head in the direction of his friend. "--is Dongwoo."

The music club was small and underfunded, with half of the members barely bothering to show up most of the time. The room was dingy, the walls scribbled on, the guitars scratched, but by the end of the day it was an atmosphere that suited them, where they felt at home, like rats in a sewer. It was the stage for their late night four man Nirvana covers, amps turned up as far as they dared, scrambling for the levers when some janitor or club teacher came banging on the door.

He didn't really get to know Dongwoo that year. Both him and Jinyoung had the distant air of seniority, the way older semi-friends do, but while Jinyoung was popular and easygoing, Dongwoo was shy, self-conscious and painfully awkward. He was tall and gangly with wide shoulders, but lived bent and hunched, as if he didn't want to take up the space of his own body. His smiles were stiff and rehearsed, and when he got embarrassed he spilled out a low, sheepish laugh.

Already that winter Jinyoung had started nagging about wanting to Start A Band, for real, but there was finals and college applications and then him and Dongwoo graduated, disappeared, and it was much harder to find time and opportunity to play together.

Chanshik hadn't talked to Jinyoung for months when he suddenly called him, saying, "Hey, you free on Saturday? Come over. We're gonna jam."

They set up in Jinyoung's basement, cramped and horrible acoustics, and they could only play when his parents were out. But that’s where it started.

The morning after Chanshik's parents had kissed him on the cheek, precautionarily admonished him and then rolled down the street in the red Hyundai, Jinyoung rang on his front door before he even had had breakfast, eyes wild and shining.

They cleared out and cleaned up the garage, and in the afternoon loaded Dongwoo's kit out of his dad's car, setting it up in its designated corner. Maybe it wasn't the first time he had noticed, but seeing Dongwoo grin at one of Sunwoo's stupid jokes over the bass drum, it was the first time Chanshik voiced the thought to himself - Dongwoo was different. Was straighter, looser in the limbs, laughed more freely.

Then again they had all changed. Had all grown.

They started seeing a lot more of each other after that, since Dongwoo had to come over every time he wanted to play. Chanshik gave him a spare key so he could come and go as he wanted, even during late nights when Chanshik worked, but polite as he is he still always rang the bell before coming inside the house after a session, lingering before saying goodbye. Chanshik used him as a guinea-pig for his attempts at cooking, learning to draw conclusions from the smallest details and shifts in Dongwoo's expression because he was too nice to say anything but that it tasted good. Sometimes they stayed up talking. Sometimes he just sank down next to Chanshik in front of the TV, watching a movie together in comfortable silence.

That spring Jinyoung introduced Junghwan, who was in his class, just moved in from Busan. He had string-calloused fingers and a strong, smooth voice.

When he heard Junghwan complain about not having found a dorm room or flatmate yet, Chanshik looked up so quickly he almost sprained his neck.

"Dude," he said. "I've got a whole fucking house." An empty one. Emptier than he ever had imagined.

And so they were five.

 

 

Chanshik remembers. Last summer, July, afternoons that were warm but not too hot. The two of them, splayed on the grass in Chanshik's backyard. Dongwoo's tanned skin smelled of earth, the palms of his hands were damp, and in the sunlight his eyes were the color of amber. Chanshik whispered silly jokes, imitated weird voices, kept drawing the laughs out of him, couldn't get enough. He drank in the smiles, the warm, lazy, shining smiles, as if he knew, somewhere, that receiving them was not something he could take for granted.

Chanshik closes his eyes.

 

 

Chanshik looks up along the ladder leaned against the house wall and takes a deep breath. He raked the lawn last week, but there's already a new, thin layer of leaves covering his garden. The bushes sit naked and spindly and here and there in the corners stand clusters of stiff, greying stalks who have long since lost their flowers. 

The first story isn't that high, really, but high enough that his knees become weak and untrustworthy on the higher bars. He gives the ladder a jerk to check the stability and pushes it a little deeper into the grass, then, slowly but surely, starts to climb.

When he reaches the overhang he, one hand at a time, lets go of the ladder and grips the edge of the gutter, carefully taking another two steps to get it at waist level.

The roof looks good. He can't see any broken or missing tiles, at least not from where he's standing. Clenching his fingers, he slowly leans sideways and peers down towards the ground. The dry leaves littering the grass look disproportionately tiny. Chanshik swiftly straightens up and looks forward again.

He takes out the work gloves from the pockets of his dad’s old jacket and pulls them on, then starts cleaning the gutters of leaves and acorns and pieces of twigs, letting it rain down below him like nature's own confetti. He reaches as far as his arms go in both directions, then carefully makes his way down again and moves the ladder. The third and fourth times are a little bit easier.

When he's done with the front he moves back to the middle of the length of the house, in front of the large living room windows, and takes an extra step on the ladder. He leans over the gutter, both palms flat on the sloping roof. One more step, and then he can get his knee up on the tiles. He rubs over one of them with the heel of his gloved hand to make sure they’re not slippery, then half walks, half crawls the long couple of meters until he can grab onto the edge of the roof of the second story dormer. Slowly he stretches his shaky legs, clutching the roof like a toddler with a walker, then a breath of wind catches his hair and he realizes, with a sudden rush of excitement, how high up he is. He can see all the way to the end of the street, and the fields on the other side of the grove bordering their neighborhood.

He has only lived here for 8 years, not even half of his life, but still he can barely remember Suncheon from his childhood. On the other hand he has clear memories of this house from when he was very little, back when it was still his great-uncle’s house. He remembers the way it smelled - of textiles, and old people, and something else, something that was entirely its own. He remembers eating cold noodles on the steps of the porch on summer evenings, when the heat was finally starting to budge. He remembers the wallpapers in the room upstairs where he and his brother used to sleep when they came to visit - now his room, and the walls covered with new wallpaper, and later yet, when he became the man of the house and could do whatever he wanted, painted over. 

It’s as if this house, when he climbed out of the car on a cold February afternoon, backpack strapped tight over his shoulders, watching the men loading boxes and furniture out of a truck for a minute before he walked up those porch steps and came into it’s embrace, took over and blurred every sign of his past life. Like what led him there didn’t matter. Like this was where he belonged.

He checks the ridges and the joints between different angles of roof, removes some branches lying in the crevices and then crawls down again, blindly waving his foot around with a moment of increasing panic before it finds a ladder bar.

He has almost made it around the house when he hears a call from below.

"Oi!"

Steadying himself with his hands, he looks down to see Sunwoo standing on the lawn, bass on his back and hands in his pockets, looking up at him.

"Hey," Chanshik calls back. "Go inside, it's open. I'll be down soon."

When he opens the front door, smelling of fresh air and nature, Sunwoo’s on his way out again.

“I’m gonna warm up,” he says, stepping into his shoes.

“Okay,” Chanshik says, taking off his jacket. “Want me to join?”

“Sure.”

Chanshik nods. “I’m just gonna change.”

Jinyoung and Dongwoo arrive half an hour later. Chanshik hears the van come into the driveway, and a minute later - faintly - feet up the stairs of the porch. Sunwoo gets up from his chair and pokes his head out the door.

“Guys. In here.”

He holds the door until Dongwoo takes it, coming in with Jinyoung in tow, dumping bags and guitars on the floor.

“I don’t think Junghwan’s back yet,” Chanshik says. “Did he have something this afternoon?”

Jinyoung immediately pulls his phone from his pocket and moves back towards the door. “I’ll check if he needs a ride.”

Sunwoo sits down with his bass again and goes back to playing the same string of tunes over and over, fingers slowly growing faster and smoother. Dongwoo heads over to his kit to drop his bag and jacket on his throne. Then he moves back towards the other side of the room, but pauses in the middle of it, just for a second. He meets Chanshik’s eyes.

“Hey,” he says.

Chanshik blinks. “Hey.”

Dongwoo sinks down into the couch and takes out his phone. After a minute Jinyoung comes back in.

“He’s on his way.” He turns to Chanshik. “Did you get tomorrow off, by the way?”

Chanshik shakes his head. “Sorry. There’s a big conference, my boss wants me to play.”

Jinyoung nods to himself, lips stretched stiffly. “So we have two days.”

“We can’t really count Thursday,” Sunwoo says. “We have to be down to finishing touches by then.”

Chanshik nods. “We have to decide on the arrangements today.”

“Right. Dress rehearsal on Thursday,” Jinyoung says. “And solo practice tomorrow, grind our parts, make sure everything sticks.” He looks around on the three of them until they all nod in promise. 

Suddenly his stern expression shifts into a grin. “Can we do this?” he asks them.

Sunwoo looks at Chanshik. “I mean. I guess…”

“Can we fucking do this?!” Jinyoung repeats, voice raised.

“Fuck yeah, we can!” Chanshik yells back, humoring him. 

“Fuck yeah!” Sunwoo adds for good measure. 

Jinyoung snorts, and they all start laughing. Sunwoo bends over his bass again. Jinyoung turns away and hoists his bag up on a chair, starting to dig around in it for something. Dongwoo grins where he’s sitting, playing with one of his rings. When he looks up his gaze comes on Chanshik, meeting his eyes again for a second, and when he looks away he still has a smile on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> if u got this far, hi and thank u! i wrote most of this during the winter of 2015/2016 and posted on tumblr, since then i've tweaked/added some scenes. it's not finished and i won't continue it but i figured it still deserves to be posted properly. i'm not in the fandom anymore so this is my last b1a4 fic.


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